03/06/2026
Dr. Santos dives into the helpfulness of self talk that can be applied to self regulation in challenging moments. Recently, Olympics athletes have also shared using this technique.
Ever caught yourself mid-conversation... with yourself?
Maybe you were replaying something someone said. Rehearsing your next meeting opener. Giving yourself a quiet "Come on, you've got this" before walking into something hard.
That inner voice isn't a quirk. Psychologists call it inner speech, and it's one of the most studied features of human cognition that most people know almost nothing about.
Ethan Kross at the University of Michigan has spent years studying these silent conversations. What he's found: they're not background noise. The way you talk to yourself shapes how you handle stress, how you make decisions, and how you show up when it counts.
One finding I keep thinking about: people who refer to themselves by name — "Come on, Laurie, you've got this" instead of "I've got this" — tend to create more distance from whatever's stressing them out. Same situation, different language, different experience.
Kross also found we don't just talk to ourselves — we rehearse conversations with other people, test out ideas before saying them, and use self-talk to work through tricky social moments.
So the next time you notice yourself mid-monologue: your brain is doing what it was built to do. The question is whether you're paying attention to what it's saying.
Kross, E., Bruehlman-Senecal, E., Park, J., Burson, A., Dougherty, A., Shablack, H., ... & Ayduk, O. (2014). Self-talk as a regulatory mechanism: how you do it matters. Journal of personality and social psychology, 106(2), 304.
